Hilary Benn: As I told the House when I made the statement, it is open to each of us—I have to manage the cost of the schemes that I have put in place and the assistance that I have given in relation to England—and to the devolved Administrations to have that conversation if they wish. However, it is not unreasonable in the circumstances, given that we do not yet know what the full cost of the outbreak will be, for each of us to bear the costs for the time being of the schemes that we think are appropriate for the parts of the country for which we have responsibility. That is what I have done for England, and the Welsh Agriculture Minister has done the same in Wales, as has the Scottish Executive in Scotland.

Martin Horwood: I appreciate the Secretary of State's interest in the impact of flooding in Gloucestershire, and in my constituency in particular. There are two issues that I would like him to raise with the insurers. First, is it wise to keep building planned houses on areas that flooded in July, like Leckhampton in my constituency? Will the homes built there be insurable at any economic premium? Secondly, will the insurers be able to expedite payments to small businesses affected by the flooding? Many of them are still waiting for compensation months later, with an obvious impact on their cash flow, their bank charges and the interest that they pay on their overdrafts.

Hilary Benn: I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that commitment. Of course the committee on climate change will advise on reductions in carbon emissions, because how else would we have any prospect of reaching a reduction of at least 60 per cent. by 2050? If he had listened to what I said in response to the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Evennett), he would know that the committee on climate change will be independent. The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) is asking us to do the committee's job for it, but I do not propose to do that. We are setting the framework. We are setting a clear target that we must achieve to reduce carbon emissions, but it is right and proper that the committee on climate change, in giving us advice on the first three five-year budgets, should be the body that advises us on what the pathways should be, and that is exactly what it will do.

David Taylor: Will my hon. Friend and Portcullis House neighbour accept an invitation to visit my constituency? It lies at the heart of the 200-square-mile National Forest, where industries associated with waste wood are being developed at quite a rapid rate. If she does visit my constituency, will my hon. Friend visit Orchard primary school in Castle Donington—where I switched on a wood-pellet boiler some time ago—and observe the ways in which we can encourage public sector bodies such as schools, hospitals and police stations to install heating systems using materials of this kind?

Hilary Benn: We are seeing movement—look at the recent announcement that Australia made. However, my hon. Friend draws attention to the other thing on which we have to make progress. If we look at the G77, the group of developing countries, we cannot credibly argue that China, which will shortly be the largest emitter in the world, if it is not already, although not in per capita terms, should be regarded as being in the same position as Mali or Burkina Faso. That would hinder efforts to make progress. So far, the agreements have talked about common but differentiated commitments, but in the course of negotiations we will have to come to a view, as countries develop economically, about what commitments it is reasonable for them to take on to contribute to dealing with the problem.
	Even if the rich developed countries disappeared from the world tomorrow and took the emissions that we are currently producing with us, because of the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere and the rising carbon emissions in the developing world, it would be left to deal with the problem anyway. That makes the point that all of us have to play our part.

Jessica Morden: How the Government plan to ensure that the views of wildlife groups are taken into account when considering the possibility of a Severn Barrage.

Jessica Morden: The Newport wetlands wildlife reserve, the compensatory habitat for Cardiff bay, is in my constituency. I support the drive to harness tidal energy in the Severn, but will right hon. Friend ensure that the feasibility study is truly independent and open and examines all the options and impacts? Will she ensure that wildlife groups such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Wildlife Trust are listened to and are part of a stakeholder group during the process?

Joan Ruddock: The feasibility study is at an early stage and the project organisation and Government arrangements are being developed and are subject to ministerial approval. The work plans for the various issues are also at an early stage and we had our first cross-departmental working group meeting on 18 October. The detailed communications plan is being developed to ensure that appropriate stakeholder communication and engagement takes place in an effective and appropriate way and at the right time. I am not in position at the moment to guarantee the specific involvement of groups in any particular way, but I can assure my hon. Friend of the group's openness, transparency and willingness to consult. I hope that she and organisations such as the RSPB and Friends of the Earth will acknowledge that the Government have a good track record in consulting NGOs.

Paddy Tipping: Those are improving figures; congratulations to all involved. But it remains the case that many women who appear before court feel that they are the accused rather than the victim. In that context, will my hon. and learned Friend look at the case about which I have just written to her concerning a constituent in Edwinstowe who has had that very experience?

Vera Baird: I certainly will and I have just received a letter from my hon. Friend about the case. He raises a problematic issue; the extent to which cross-examination should be allowed. Obviously, there must be a balance between the freedom for the defendant to test the case against him and his not being inappropriately oppressive and re-traumatising the victim. Judges and magistrates have a duty to control proceedings and to stop over-oppressive cross-examination. Our prosecutors now have a duty to do that as well. I will certainly look at the file about the case and I invite him to come and discuss it with me.

Nick Herbert: I thank the Lord Chancellor for giving me a brief early sight of his statement and for the delivery of the documents to my office this morning. I congratulate him on pulling rank over his right hon. and learned Friend the deputy leader of the Labour party and the Leader of the House by making his statement ahead of the business statement.
	The Lord Chancellor says that this is about changing how Britain is governed, and strengthening Parliament. Will he confirm that the Prime Minister will be making a speech shortly on the Human Rights Act outside the House, as has been widely reported in the press this morning, not least on the front page of  The Guardian? The press has clearly been briefed. Will the Lord Chancellor tell the House how, when the Prime Minister makes such an important speech outside the House and prevents us from being able to debate it, that constitutes the strengthening of Parliament?
	In our Opposition day debate on 15 May, we called for the strengthening of parliamentary approval of international treaties. Our democracy taskforce, chaired by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), proposed that international treaties be exempt from the royal prerogative, and be required to be laid before Parliament, together with an explanatory document. Why do the Government believe that statutory change is necessary, when a resolution of the House of Commons would be adequate? The consultation document says that proposals on parliamentary approval would relate to new international treaties, but what about existing ones? The House will have a chance to vote on the EU constitutional treaty, signed by the Prime Minister in Lisbon last week, but none the less it will not be put to a vote of the people. Is that the way to rebuild the public's trust?
	Given the frequency of deployments and the controversy that that has created, there is growing consensus in this country that the decision to go to war requires democratic legitimacy. We have already said that parliamentary assent, for example through a resolution of the House of Commons, should be required to commit troops to war, international armed conflict or peacekeeping activity. We favour that being done through the development of a parliamentary convention. The consultation paper proposes that, apart from informing the House, there be no requirement for any further parliamentary procedure, but if the Government really want to strengthen Parliament, should not the House be able to have a decisive say if the Government make a wrong call? Of course there are serious issues relating to the potential for a negative vote when troops are already in the field, but there should be no blank cheque. In matters as critical as a major deployment in an emergency, why should there not be an opportunity for retrospective approval, not just an obligation for the Prime Minister to inform Parliament?
	It is right that the House should vote before troops are committed to military action overseas, but we had a vote when the war in Iraq was declared, and the House was not given a full and accurate account of the position. Does the Lord Chancellor not appreciate that what has caused a haemorrhaging of public trust in Government is not the failure to give Parliament a vote—there was a vote—but the fact that the Government in which he was Foreign Secretary misled the public on the issue?
	We welcome moves to strengthen the Intelligence and Security Committee—but will the Lord Chancellor confirm that appointments to the Committee will not be in the gift of the Government Whips?
	We welcome the measures to allow protests around Parliament. Indeed, when the reprehensible legislation on the subject was passed, I said that it was more appropriate to Tiananmen square than to Parliament square.  [Interruption.] Will the Lord Chancellor explain exactly how such a flagrant attack on freedom of expression was not found to be incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1998? Was that not an example of the way in which the Act interferes with our ability to deal with terrorists and serious criminals, but fails to protect essential civil liberties?  [Interruption.]

Jack Straw: Let me try to deal briefly with those points. First, I regret the first point that the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) made about the order of the statements today. When I was Leader of the House, and in the case of every predecessor, there were a number of occasions when it was for the convenience of the House and colleagues that I, as Leader of the House, made my statement after a ministerial statement. I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House on this occasion.
	My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is indeed making an important speech. My statement was intended to ensure that in advance of that speech, the House is informed of all substantive developments that he is speaking about.
	The fact that we are proposing a British Bill of Rights and responsibilities and developing such a Bill has been made very clear in the House on a number of occasions. When the consultative document, which I am currently working on, is ready to publish, it will be published first to the House.
	The hon. Gentleman made some extraordinarily muddled comments about the ratification of treaties, and about war powers. I always do my best to ensure that Opposition spokespeople have documents like the ones under discussion as soon as possible. That I tried to do this morning. As for the European treaty, the Ponsonby rule does not apply to that. Why? Because there is a far better procedure in respect of all EU treaties. They are the subject of line-by-line examination by separate Bill.
	On war powers, I do not know what the hon. Gentleman was going on about when he talked about retrospective approval. There are paragraphs in the document, as we have made clear, about where retrospective approval should apply, and how we could have retrospective approval without undermining the armed forces.
	The hon. Gentleman also asked whether we should prevent recommendations for membership of the Intelligence and Security Committee from being influenced by the Government Whips. That is well above his pay grade and mine. If he is proposing that we get to a situation in which the Government Whips exert no influence whatever on the membership of Committees, I look forward to that time arriving—but I am not sure that that will be while he or I are in the House.
	On protests about Parliament, I hope that, on reflection, the hon. Gentleman will recognise that references to Tiananmen square are completely misplaced. I heard the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) saying from a sedentary position, but not sotto voce, that what the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs said about that was rubbish. Provided that that is parliamentary, Mr. Speaker, I agree with it. I am making a serious point to the hon. Gentleman. People died in Tiananmen square.  [Interruption.] His language was very intemperate indeed.
	On the judiciary, again the hon. Gentleman was profoundly muddled. Nothing has been imperilled by the creation of the Ministry of Justice. The protection of the judiciary remains. I have made it clear that I have no intention of undermining its budget. The case for a supreme court has been widely supported across the country.
	The hon. Gentleman's last point was extraordinary, suggesting that if we sought a more diverse judiciary, somehow it would be less well qualified. I hope that that is not the official position of the Opposition. The House has been strengthened by the introduction of more women and more black and Asian Members, and it will be more strengthened still by more women and black and Asian Members. Exactly the same applies to the judiciary.

Jack Straw: May I apologise for that, and I will ensure that it is rectified as soon as possible. And I must add that in one passage in the middle of the statement, I busked.

Alan Whitehead: I very much welcome the statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice and the documents that accompany it. One of those relates to changes in royal prerogative. Is it my right hon. Friend's intention to continue to review the question of the royal prerogative, particularly how Parliament uses it, or does he consider that the documents that we have this morning constitute that review?

Jack Straw: The documents are part of the review of the royal prerogative. We have been much informed by the report of the Public Administration Committee of about three years ago, and we continue to examine other aspects of the royal prerogative.
	May I also say that in response to the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs, I got one point wrong? The EU reform treaty will be subject to the Ponsonby rule, but in addition, it will be subject to detailed parliamentary scrutiny.

David Heath: I, too, welcome the statement, and I would have welcomed early sight of the papers accompanying it. In his announcement today, the Lord Chancellor has given the strong impression that he is running to catch up with the statements of the Prime Minister outside the House. Nevertheless, I welcome many of the proposals in the statement.
	The changes to the royal prerogative in terms of war-making powers are long overdue. It is extremely pleasing to hear the support from the Government Benches and from the Conservatives for something that they flatly rejected when it was proposed by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) not long ago. Even with the provisos that were already in that Bill about morale, operational flexibility and legal liability, it seemed impossible for those on either Front Bench to support even the principle of that Bill at that stage, so the conversion is welcome.
	With reference to the royal prerogative on treaties, I invite the Lord Chancellor to provide a further gloss on what he said about European Union treaties. Where no change in domestic law is required by the treaty, it does not receive line-by-line scrutiny in the House. Some of us believe that any treaty should be subject to the oversight of the House.
	On the independence of the judiciary, I welcome the discussion paper on separation of powers—almost, as it would seem, as an academic subject. The large number of examples from other jurisdictions have sparing relevance to our system, but if we can further cement the independence of the judiciary, that is extremely important. What new thinking is apparent on the Government's part since the last time we visited the issue? After all, we have only just put in place new provisions to strengthen the role of the Lord Chief Justice.
	On the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, I note what the Lord Chancellor says about concerns among campaigners and other citizens, and we need to listen to those concerns. May I suggest an innovation to him: that this House actually listens to Members when they raise concerns in the context of the Bill? We fought every inch of the way on the provisions, because we knew exactly what the consequences would be. We would have welcomed the support of those on the Conservative Front Benches in both Houses all the way in arguing against those provisions, but unfortunately we did not receive it. We would apparently have received the support of the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) if he had been in the House at the time. His observations, presumably made in his bathroom at home, are extremely welcome in that respect. This legislation is working to suppress the right of free speech and demonstration, and if one wants illustration of that fact, one has only to look at the case of Maya Stevens or the march that took place only the other day with on-off permission from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the threat even to hon. Members of this House that they would not be able—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I thought that I left the stopwatch when I left Rolls Royce, but I am on a stopwatch now. I must stop the hon. Gentleman, as he is over his time, and be fair to everyone concerned.

Jack Straw: Let me just say in respect of the points raised by the hon. Gentleman that the EU treaty will be the subject of both the Ponsonby rule and line-by-line examination, because it does affect our domestic law. The European Communities Act 1972 requires that we examine such Acts in detail.
	On the independence of the judiciary, I hope that the House will find international comparisons very interesting. When the document was originally drafted, it was short on discussion of the separation of powers, and it is important that we can put our system in the context of other comparable countries.
	On protests around Parliament square, I understand the controversy and I hope that we can reach a better consensus than we have done before, but I say to the hon. Gentleman that it is not the case that the legislation has been working to "suppress protests". Notwithstanding that legislation, it is a fact to which I can bear testament that compared with the time when I was organising quite a number of demonstrations in and around London as president of the National Union of Students, there is far greater freedom in practice to demonstrate around Parliament square while Parliament is sitting than ever there was at that time—and we still had quite a good time protesting.
	On the last point about new thinking in respect of judicial appointments, I think that most of the arrangements set out in the 2005 Act will stand the test of time, but some may need changing.

William Cash: The Lord Chancellor makes a great deal of democracy. Does he agree that given the reform treaty— [Interruption.] Oh yes, indeed. Given the reform treaty or any other that creates substantial constitutional change, does the Lord Chancellor agree that another convention should be applied? Not only should such a treaty go through Parliament—where, of course, it will be rammed through by the Whips—but it should also be subject to a referendum of the people as a whole, for we hold our position on trust from them.

John Spellar: The Leader of the House will be aware that the Government have had for several months the report of the Senior Salaries Review Body. Can she let the House know when it is likely to be published and when it is likely to be considered by the House?

Simon Hughes: Indeed. However, we also have the report that the Leader of the House mentioned, which has been completed in the Ministry of Justice and reviews all the elections in recent years. May I urge giving serious consideration to ending the real mischief, which is holding elections for different levels of government throughout the country on the same day? That means that people do not vote on the issues that are relevant to the various authorities. We are desperately keen to get quick rather than accurate results. There is no public support for counting by machine, which means that people cannot see what is going on. People prefer counting by individuals, which means that people can see what is happening. Ultimately, somebody has to take responsibility for elections.
	The Leader of the House mentioned justice issues for debate. I ask her to put two items on the agenda as soon as possible. The first is prisons. We now learn that some prisons are dedicated entirely to foreign prisoners, yet in other prisons, there are many people suffering from mental illness who should not be in prison. We must put prison issues on top of the political agenda.
	Secondly, tribunals in this country are now full of people—for example, female local government workers pursuing equal pay cases—but we cannot have group actions, which would resolve many individual issues at the same time.
	I asked the Leader of the House a written question, as I said I would, about the draft legislative programme and the consultation that has taken place on it. I know that she cannot tell us today what changes the consultation has brought about, but, given that the Government published a draft legislative programme for the Queen's Speech and then consulted, are any changes likely as a result of responses to the consultation, or was the consultation simply a presentation exercise—spin rather than substance?

Ann Coffey: As part of "Inside Justice" week, a group of children from Adswood primary school in my constituency are visiting a local magistrates court, where they will have the opportunity to participate in a mock trial, question the judge and pass sentence. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that that is an excellent way of involving children in understanding the justice system and that it should be open to all children? Will she also make time for a debate on the subject?

Harriet Harman: I will bring that to the attention of my hon. Friends in the Ministry of Justice. I commend the work that is being done in my hon. Friend's Stockport constituency on "Inside Justice" week. I hope that many of those young people will end up in court again as magistrates.

John Bercow: As it is international brain tumour awareness week and supporters in several countries across the world have covered twice the circumference of the globe in undertaking fund-raising sponsored walks on its behalf, may we have a debate in Government time on the Floor of the House as a matter of urgency? No fewer than 16,000 people are diagnosed with brain tumours each year, yet survival rates have not risen in line with those for other cancers and the brain tumour research community benefits from only a tiny proportion of the resources available to Cancer Research UK and the Medical Research Council. Is it not time that we considered how we can do better in the interests of helping those thousands of people who have suffered far too much for far too long with far too little done to help them?

Dawn Butler: My right hon. Friend has been very active during Black History month. As we approach the end of Black History month, and the end of a year in which we have commemorated the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade, will my right hon. and learned Friend ensure that we have a debate on how and when we will implement an annual slavery memorial day?

Andrew MacKay: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek your advice and guidance. You will see at column 285 of  Hansard that yesterday the Prime Minister suggested that the Leader of the Opposition "is misleading people". You will further see that, in response to a point of order of mine, the Speaker said
	"I have consulted the record and I am satisfied that the Prime Minister has said nothing unparliamentary."—[ Official Report, 24 October 2007; Vol. 465, c. 291.]
	Previously, we perhaps all wrongly assumed that misleading was unparliamentary and out of order. May we now assume that, if a Minister or Member is misleading the House, that is out of order, but if he is misleading—

Harriet Harman: I beg to move,
	That this House welcomes the First Report of the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons on Revitalising the Chamber: the role of the back bench Member (House of Commons Paper No. 337) and approves the proposals for changes in the procedures and practices of the House set out in the Government's response to the report (Cm. 7231), including the proposals for topical questions.
	This is my first opportunity to respond to a Modernisation Committee debate. I pay tribute to previous Chairs of that Committee: the late Robin Cook, my right hon. Friends the Members for Derby, South (Margaret Beckett), for Neath (Mr. Hain), for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon), and for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), who chaired it more recently. I also pay tribute to the many Members who have served on that Committee and continue to do so, including the current Chairman of the Procedure Committee, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight), and the Modernisation Committee's most senior and longest-serving member, the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton). This House is more effective as a result of their work.

Harriet Harman: Very shortly. I must work out what comes next, after very shortly. Perhaps it is very, very shortly.
	Hon. Members have an important role in their constituencies, but they also have vital work in this Chamber and in Select and Public Bill Committees. It is a timeless characteristic of our system that Members arrive at the general from the particular. The different roles that make up a Member of Parliament's work are not separate and competing, but interconnected and interdependent. That is why it is important, as the Modernisation Committee report highlighted, for Members' to be able to organise their time as effectively as possible. Thus Chamber debates have to be organised in a way that allows hon. Members to know that they can contribute.
	I shall deal first with the Modernisation Committee report on promoting interest in the Chamber. Its central theme is to promote the work of the Chamber by providing greater opportunities for Members to bring issues swiftly into the Chamber while they are still topical and maximising the opportunities for Back Benchers to participate in the Chamber. The Government have accepted most of the recommendations. Some of them—for example, those relating to new topical procedures and speaking times, are quite far-reaching, so it is proposed that in the first instance, they should run for a trial period during the next session.
	The Modernisation Committee proposes that business managers and the usual channels should seek to promote greater topicality in the first instance through trying to find opportunities to bring more topical issues to the House in two ways: by rebalancing the regular slots currently recognised by the House for such matters as the Queen's Speech, defence debates, the Budget debate and so on—I would welcome a debate in the House with contributions from all parties on the overall shape of those annual debates—and by being readier to hold half-day debates rather than full-day debates. That is not in the gift of the Government, and if we are to secure those changes, we will need the co-operation of the official Opposition and the whole House.
	The Modernisation Committee proposes that debates should be seen to be more significant, both to Members and to the outside world. That could be done by holding more such debates on substantive motions—on a form of words enabling the House to express a specific view—and in other cases, through ending the practice of holding debates on the historic motion, "That this House do now adjourn", when in fact the House intends to proceed to a full debate. The Government have accepted the Committee's recommendation on that latter point. Accordingly, where the House does not seek to express a specific view on a subject, it should use a standard motion of the form, "That this House has considered the matter of...". The specified subject matter for such motions, as with Adjournment motions, would be expressed in neutral terms and would not be amendable, but what is going on in this House would be much clearer to colleagues and to the outside world.
	I turn to the question of topicality: urgent procedures, topical questions and topical debates. The Government are accepting a range of proposals to maximise the opportunities for the House to consider the pressing issues of the moment, including two key proposals: having so-called "topical questions" and weekly topical debates. Topical questions will mean that most of the major Departments will have a period of their Question Time similar to Prime Minister's Questions, in which open questions will be allowed. The period will be 15 minutes of topical questions for Departments answering for a full hour and 10 minutes for those answering for 40 minutes. The precise rules, and the calling of Members after the initial open question, will operate as with other questions under the Speaker's direction, and will allow topical matters to be raised.
	Topical debates will be weekly 90-minute debates on a topic of the day that is of international, national or regional importance. The selection of topic will, as proposed by the Modernisation Committee, be announced by the Leader of the House, following representations received and contacts through the usual channels. Some flexibility must be preserved as to exactly when the debate should take place each week. When the House does not sit for a full week, there would generally be no such debate. I would envisage announcing the slot for the topical debate during Thursday's business questions—I would be able to hear from hon. Members from all parties at that point—and if the slot were for the coming Monday or Tuesday, I would envisage announcing the subject at that time too. To ensure proper topicality, if the slot was to be for the following Wednesday or Thursday, I plan to give notice of the subject not before the Monday afternoon.
	I would be happy to receive representations on the subject for topical debates from Members through any route they choose, including business questions. This innovation may be the most significant of all the measures proposed today. It will enable the House to hold the Government to account more effectively and to air issues of topical concern.
	The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) tabled an amendment drawing attention to parts of the Modernisation Committee report that were not in the bold recommendations and were not fully reflected in our response. She asks for the subject for the topical debate to be announced by the Leader of the House following consultation with business managers. As I have stated, that is indeed what we envisage happening, and that would include consultations through the usual channels.
	The right hon. Lady also proposes a fortnightly written ministerial statement listing the subjects proposed by hon. Members. I am, of course, willing to see how best the system can operate in terms of representations and how the process can be as open as possible, but the precise mechanism proposed may not be the best one. We do not know how the process will work in practice. Dozens, or even hundreds, of suggestions or requests might be made, given in all sorts of different ways, so it might not be straightforward to compress all such representations into a written statement. Indeed, we would not want to encourage a situation in which Members sought opportunities to manipulate the process by setting up campaigns. It may well be that in practice most representations come through Thursday morning business questions anyway, in which case everyone will be able to hear them at first hand. The whole arrangement is, of course, experimental and we will be able to review it in a year's time.

John Bercow: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Harriet Harman: I think that I shall press on, if I may. I have answered a great many questions, and there are Back Benchers who have speeches to make. I do not want to run out of time. We had two statements today even before we got to this business, and I must protect the rights of Back Benchers who want to make speeches.
	I turn now to the question of petitions, and to the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) and others. However, before I move on to the Procedure Committee report on petitions and EDMs, perhaps I could just mention the Modernisation Committee's recommendation that the absolute bar on the use of hand-held devices for keeping up with emails should be lifted—provided, as the Modernisation Committee noted, that that causes no disturbance. The hon. Member for Congleton and others have tabled an amendment proposing that this change should be rejected.
	That is obviously a matter for the House, but my own view is that it is a sensible proposal. The Modernisation Committee, following representations from a number of hon. Members, took the view that it was a sensible measure to accommodate hon. Members' practical needs if they were to be expected to spend considerable time waiting in the Chamber to speak and listening to the debate. I think that the proposal is realistic and would be genuinely helpful. Hon. Members will note that if the House agrees to the terms of the Government response by agreeing to the motion tabled, and as explained in the explanatory memorandum, the change would come into force only when Mr. Speaker has approved the necessary arrangements.
	As we will all recognise, petitions have come increasingly under the spotlight as interest has grown in different forms of direct engagement with the public. Our own petitions procedures have gradually been brought up to date over the years. For example, the top copy no longer has to be handwritten, the rules for eligibility of petitions have been simplified, and the Clerks in the Journal Office can always assist Members in ensuring that petitions are in order. The time is now right to develop the procedures further, to make more apparent the opportunities that people have to address this place directly.
	The latest report from the Procedure Committee has been a balanced study of what further steps might be taken. It proposes the retention of the Member link to an incoming petition, but makes a number of proposals to make petitions more visible in the House's procedures. They include proposals that petitions be published in  Hansard, that the Government respond to petitions and that Select Committees specifically include on their agendas the petitions that have been forwarded to them. Another possibility is that there should be a dedicated debate slot for petitions in Westminster Hall.
	The Government have accepted most of those recommendations, as outlined in our response document. In respect of Westminster Hall debates, we think it better that existing processes for Back Benchers to procure debates should be used, but that it should be possible to "tag" any relevant petition on the Order Paper for the debate.
	When it comes to responding to petitions, it is important to note that the Government have now given an undertaking that
	"provided that Members continue to give careful attention to a proposed petition before sponsoring it...substantive petitions should normally receive a response from the relevant government department."
	The Committee has also indicated that it will be looking further at whether some form of e-petitioning—in particular for gathering signatures—can be incorporated into the petitions process, on the basis that the Member link to a petition should be retained. The Government look forward to this second report in due course. The Government have agreed with all the specific recommendations addressed to them concerning EDMs, which continue to perform a valuable role in allowing Members to raise a variety of local or national issues in a measured way.
	I turn now to European Standing Committees. The motion relating to European Standing Committees is designed solely to allow the present temporary system for the appointment of European Standing Committees to continue. The appointment of the Committees on a one-off basis as and when there is a need, rather than appointing three permanent Committees as envisaged under Standing Order No. 119, has existed as a temporary measure until any more comprehensive reform of the European scrutiny system is put in place.
	I am well aware that neither the system envisaged by the Standing Orders, nor the temporary system currently in place, is satisfactory. The 2005 Modernisation Committee report on European scrutiny identified failings, and I think that many hon. Members here would agree, but we have yet to identify the precise solutions.
	The Modernisation Committee report contained several recommendations relating to the European Standing Committee process. My predecessors as Leader of the House and I have all been looking at the matter closely. I agree that we need to identify improvements to the European Standing Committee process. We are actively looking at ways in which this might be done.
	I come now to the amendment in name of my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) and other members of the European Scrutiny Committee. In the meantime, the power to appoint Committees in the way set out under the temporary arrangement—which is what allows the system to work effectively at all at present—will expire at the end of this Session unless we renew it. My hon. Friend and the other members of the European Scrutiny Committee have tabled an amendment to provide that the extension would be for three months only into the next Session.
	While I cannot guarantee that we will be able to bring forward alternative proposals within that time, I will be working hard with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and my hon. Friend the Minister for Europe to bring forward proposals that command the support of the whole House, including the European Scrutiny Committee. I am therefore content to accept the amendment.
	The Modernisation Committee and other Committees of this House have done us a favour in bringing forward some very sensible suggestions about how we could do our business better. I hope that all hon. Members will support the measures, as they will provide greater topicality for our debates, enhance and strengthen the role of Back Benchers, and improve our scrutiny of Government.

Theresa May: As it happens, I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that Members should not take precedence in tea and canteen queues in this House.
	To return to the motion, the sovereignty of Parliament in our constitution is known, or should be known, by all, but to ensure that our constitution remains healthy, and that the way we govern ourselves continues to work properly, we have to ensure that Parliament stays strong. We need to do that in a variety of ways—by preventing its domination by the Executive, by protecting and extending its democratic legitimacy and by making sure that what goes on in this and the other place is relevant to what goes on outside this building, in the real world, in the lives of the people who put us here.
	The Prime Minister and his Government talk much about making Parliament stronger and more relevant. Indeed, the Prime Minister has said that he wants to make Parliament the "crucible" of our political life. If only his actions matched his words people might actually believe that was not just another piece of spin. We have had supposedly spin-free statements spun to the press beforehand, troop withdrawals double-counted and announced at a photo-shoot first rather than to Parliament and a pre-Budget report whose detail bore little resemblance to the statement made to the House by the Chancellor.
	Sir Winston Churchill said of the duties of a Member of Parliament:
	"The first duty of a member of Parliament is to do what he thinks is right for Great Britain. His second duty is to his constituents. It is only in the third place that his duty to party takes rank. All these three loyalties should be observed, but there is no doubt of the order in which they stand."
	Given the way the Prime Minister treated Parliament when he was Chancellor and the way he is treating it now, and the way he treated the country by considering a snap election as long as it suited the Labour party, I fear that he has Churchill's three loyalties in the wrong order.

John Bercow: It is of course important that we know not only the contents of the list of proposed topics for the topical debates but also the number of right hon. and hon. Members who have made a request for each. That does not mean that the judgment must be only quantitative, it can be qualitative as well, but we ought to know how many wanted which. Given that the Leader of the House said she was happy to hear from Members by letter, e-mail or in person, does my right hon. Friend agree that there can be no objection to the right hon. and learned Lady's subsequently letting us know how many people requested which debate? What is there to hide?

Michael Connarty: My hon. Friend makes a good point. I know that he came from a distinguished career in local government in a much bigger authority than I was ever involved in, and he will have experienced the sudden vacuum of support and, at times, confusion that was described earlier.
	All the interventions are relevant, but I shall return to my own topic. The European Scrutiny Committee received a letter from the Deputy Leader of the House about our request. It will be noted by Members that on 8 October I raised the matter, after the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) raised the topic of the European Standing Committees not being collapsed once again. We then wrote to the Leader of the House. I know that she has been slightly indisposed, and I am glad that she is looking hale and hearty today on the Front Bench. I hope that her good health continues.
	We received a letter from the Deputy Leader of the House, which stated that
	"if the temporary arrangement is not renewed, the immediate effect would be that there are  no arrangements".
	That is entirely wrong. What would happen is that we would revert to Standing Order No. 119, which is quite clear. It states that there will be three Standing Committees, each having 13 permanent members, and that any Member of the House may attend and speak at a European Standing Committee, which is still the case.
	With regard to openness, although we might not meet in public, it is the right of any Member of the House to request to attend our Select Committee as an observer, and the Deputy Leader of the House took advantage of that provision this week. Any Member can come and watch the business that we are transacting. It is not a secret from the House, but the information given by the officials is privileged and that should not be breached by its being given to the public. That is why when we print the chapters of our report each week, we put in the explanatory memorandum in full, but we do not put in the advice given by the officials to our Committee. That is right and proper and allows us to do our business correctly.
	To stress what we have lost over the past two years, I point out that we had three Committees. European Standing Committee A dealt with Environment, Food And Rural Affairs; Transport, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Forestry Commission, and analogous responsibilities of the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland Offices. European Standing Committee B dealt with the Treasury, including Customs and Excise, Work and Pensions, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, International Development, Home Office, Department for Constitutional Affairs, including those responsibilities of the Scotland and Wales Offices that fall to European Standing Committee A, together with any matters not otherwise allocated. European Standing Committee C dealt with Trade and Industry, Employment and Skills, Culture, Media and Sport, and Health.
	I have been out speaking to voluntary organisations throughout the country, who say, "Who do we speak to if some matter is coming through your Committee?" They cannot speak to members of the European Scrutiny Committee because we are not charged with the responsibility of discussing the merits of any proposal coming from Europe. We are charged with the responsibility of deciding whether something is politically and economically important. If it is considered important enough, after correspondence and evidence taking with Ministers, and we wish the House to be given the right to debate it, we request that it be considered on the Floor of the House or in a Standing Committee. We spoke earlier about the difficulties in getting Select Committee reports debated on the Floor of the House, and we respect the fact that this is a crowded period and a crowded agenda; indeed, the agenda will be even more crowded when we make room for topical issues. The Standing Committees are therefore vital. If they have a permanent membership, they will be the place where business, the voluntary sector or civic society can find a membership that is available to write to and can give information and try to influence their perspective, after which it is to be hoped that the merits of the issue would be discussed in the Standing Committees.

Simon Hughes: I will be careful not to go off piste, as it were, into a debate about electoral reform, because I was trying to put my remarks in the context of what happens in this place. One of the things that lead people not to vote is that we have often hold elections for different things on the same day.

Simon Hughes: But in the end it means that people do not know the difference between different tiers of government and what they do. They become less well informed and vote for the wrong reasons.
	Secondly, we are in a country where people think that voting does not change anything because they feel that Government, once in office, do not listen, that Parliament rarely defeats the Government and that people are too subject to the Whips once here. As a Front Bencher, I say that it should be perfectly acceptable for the Government to be defeated on something. Unless it is a major issue of the Budget or a key proposal in the Queen's Speech, that should be a normal part of the course of events.
	I am keen that, other than party manifesto commitments on which we stand for election, all the small print of secondary details of legislation and the many other things that the Government often introduce half way through a Bill should not be whipped. We should be able to form an independent view on them. If Members from all parties thought that we were free to take our own view and argue it—other than on matters on which we clearly stood for election—there would be much more interest and people would vote. I see the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) nodding. I am clear on this matter; people often think that they are voting for ciphers, who are sent here to do the will of their party leadership. That is not acceptable.
	The other principle that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) hinted at, and I want to underscore, is that we are moving from Government deciding the business of the House of Commons to the House deciding its own business. I realise that the Government will be reluctant to let go, but we should decide our business, and we can then negotiate how the Government get their business into a timetable.

Brian Binley: That is the very point that I will make for the next three or four minutes; only for that long, I hope, in view of the fact that others wish to speak.

John Redwood: Does my hon. Friend think that the Government may have an ulterior motive? Maybe what they have in mind are controllers outside this House who will watch debates and send messages through to those who cannot think of their own interventions and questions because they want to stage-manage rather more.

Brian Binley: I understand totally, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Let us get back to the business of what this House is about.
	We are talking about electronic devices not disturbing people. I have seen occasions when such devices have vibrated in people's pockets and the people vibrate as a result. Up they jump, and they fiddle about, putting hands in one pocket after another until they find their electronic device, by which time, Mr. Deputy Speaker is glaring at them and the whole House is looking at them. If that does not disturb and break up concentration, I do not know what does.
	Furthermore, hand-held devices are becoming more all-purpose. They were initially simply telephones, but they are now mini-computers, providing the ability not only to communicate, as I have said, but to record, to take photographs and even to take video film. How does anybody distinguish between someone simply looking at an e-mail and their being involved in those particular activities? I put it to hon. Members that they would not want to have a video camera, under the guise of a telephone, pointed at them in some of their quieter, slightly more relaxed moments, and for the recording to be repeated and distributed on a cheap compact disc during an election in their constituencies? Such activity might arise if we were to be so lax as to allow hand-held devices in here. We should all be careful about that particular ability and about the growth in the functions of hand-held devices. They are contained in a small package and cover a number of activities, many of which we would not wish to see in action in this House. I maintain that we would not be able to stop such activities once such devices were able to be used on a permanent basis.
	May I conclude by making the point that this Chamber is, as I have said before, about the debating of issues on behalf of the nation? It is a representative Chamber; indeed, we have a representative democracy. That is the very description of the parliamentary democracy in which we work. I want to ensure that this place remains at the heart of that process, as a debating Chamber. I want it to be more widely viewed by the people of the nation. I also want them to be able to be more involved with their Members of Parliament—their representatives—in the argument, but that should not occur when we are in the Chamber.
	This Chamber is where the elected representatives of Parliament make their points. They do so not as delegates or as members of a political party primarily, but as the elected representatives of the people of their constituency. They are chosen because they are deemed to have wisdom and experience which, if they use it independently, can make a worthwhile contribution to this place. I do not want a situation in which every time somebody wonders what he has to say, he looks at a hand-held telephone, or every time a Whip thinks that something is going wrong, they put a message through and 25 Labour or 25 Conservative Members then look at it and act differently.
	Such situations concern me immensely, but I certainly do not want an opportunity for us to be filmed without our knowledge. I am not talking about the official process of filming, but about hand-held videos that are so small that one cannot tell the difference between them and a telephone. For that reason, I want all these instruments stopped at the Door. I want to take a lesson from the wild west: do not have pistols in saloons because they are dangerous; do not have electronic devices in the Chamber because they could be equally dangerous.

Greg Knight: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leicester, South (Sir Peter Soulsby). He and I started our political careers about 30 years ago, sitting on opposite sides of the Leicester city council chamber. It is still a pleasure to be sitting opposite him.
	I agreed with most of the hon. Gentleman's comments, although I did not agree with his description of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley) as a Luddite. I would put it differently. My hon. Friend alluded to the film industry to demonstrate his point; if he were a film mogul, he would probably be the chairman of Nineteenth Century Fox.
	I thank the Leader of the House for providing time for the debate. This is important business, dealing with reports from the Modernisation Committee, of which I am a member, and the Procedure Committee, which I chair. It will come as no surprise to the House when I say that I want to focus primarily on the Procedure Committee's report. I thank its members, of all parties, for giving up their time to serve on one of the least glamorous but nevertheless key Committees of the House.
	The Leader of the House said that she wanted more plain language to be used in our Standing Orders. I can reveal to the House that the issue is on the agenda for future meetings of the Procedure Committee, and we shall look at it in depth.
	The Procedure Committee report on early-day motions and petitions was published on 22 May, and brought together two inquiries, during which the Committee took evidence from Members and House officials. We visited the Scottish Parliament to look at its petition system, and held discussions with officials responsible for administering the No. 10 e-petitions website.
	May I start by making a few remarks about early-day motions? They are often criticised. Members claim that there are too many of them and that many are trivial and tabled on unsuitable matters for debate. It is said that some are initiated by outside bodies and pressure groups. A number of Members told the Committee that they took the view that early-day motions were parliamentary graffiti. However, early-day motions actually allow Members to do several things that they could not otherwise do. They are an extremely flexible parliamentary procedure. They can draw attention to an issue that affects a single community, or even a single individual. They can also form part of an important regional or national campaign. Their popularity is evidence of their success and usefulness. The Procedure Committee was not persuaded that there were good grounds for limiting their number or scope. We believed that the disadvantages of imposing a new restriction, especially to individual Back Benchers, would outweigh the benefits.
	The Committee went on to consider whether there should be a mechanism to allow some early-day motions to be debated. Of course, many early-day motions are not intended to be for debate, but are used for other purposes, such as to call attention to the work of a body—often a local charity—or individual. If some early-day motions were to be eligible for debate, it would necessary to distinguish between those that were debatable and non-debatable.
	There are various ways in which debatable early-day motions could be chosen for debate, but the Committee concluded that they all had disadvantages. The most popular suggestion was that the number of signatures received by an early-day motion should be the trigger for a debate. However, as someone who has served in the Whips Office, I am well aware that if we were to introduce such a rule, right hon. and hon. Members would be put under pressure by not so much the public, but each party's Whips Office, to sign a motion that was embarrassing to the party on the other side of the House and thus trigger a debate on the Floor. Such a system would permanently exclude minority parties from the opportunity of having an early-day motion debated. A large number of early-day motions that attract support from hon. Members on both sides of the House are those with which it is difficult to disagree, which would thus be unlikely to give rise to a lively or worthwhile debate.
	A further suggestion was a ballot of early-day motions, but that would lead to the tabling of multiple early-day motions on the same subject in the hope that they would be chosen for debate. Unless early-day motions were regularly weeded to exclude those that were no longer topical or had been overtaken by events, there would be a risk that the early-day motions chosen would no longer be suitable for debate.
	We were then asked why, if there was to be a ballot, there should not be a ballot of Members rather than early-day motions. If that were the case, there would be no need to link the ballot to early-day motions at all, because Members should be free to select the subject of their choice. As many hon. Members will know, we used to have a ballot to select debates on private Members' motions before they were abolished in 1994. My Committee recognises the strength of the argument that the abolition in 1994 was a mistake.
	It is a weakness of Parliament that a Back-Bench Member has no opportunity to initiate a debate on a substantive motion. We are one of the few Parliaments in the western world in which such a facility is not available. The Committee's report thus urged the Modernisation Committee to give serious consideration to recommending the reintroduction of an opportunity for Members to ballot for a motion of their choice. Indeed, it was largely at my behest that the Modernisation Committee went on to recommend that there should be an experiment, with such motions chosen by ballot being considered in Westminster Hall. However, for the moment at least, the Government have rejected that recommendation. I hope that the Leader of the House will be willing to keep her decision on the matter under review because Back-Bench Members of Parliament should be given the right to seek a debate on a substantive motion of their choice.
	Moving on to petitions, the Procedure Committee inquiry was limited to public petitions, so we did not consider the procedures for petitions in respect of private or hybrid Bills, such as the Crossrail Bill, which of course are very different. We decided to look at the current position. A number of Members of the House told us at the outset that they find the current procedures for public petitions totally unsatisfactory. Some argued that once a petition was presented, it seemed to fall into a black hole. Nothing more was heard of it, and there was no feedback to the petitioners.
	We looked at the evidence and found that although the Government do respond to most petitions, there is no obligation for them to do so. We discovered that well over 20 per cent. of petitions presented to the House do not receive a response from a Department. Of those that do, some of the responses were cursory and unhelpful. They often simply restated the Government's known position, adding nothing new. Many of them did not even answer the specific point that the petitioners were making.
	Of course, any response is provided to the Member who presented the petition. It is up to him or her to pass it on to the petitioners. Petitions and Government responses to them are published once a week in a supplement to Votes and Proceedings—and those supplements must be strong contenders for the title of the House's most obscure publication. They are hard to find on the parliamentary website, and there is no effective way of searching for specific petitions, or Government responses to them. My Committee unanimously took the view that that is not good enough. Since 2005, following a recommendation of the Procedure Committee in the previous Parliament, all petitions have been forwarded to the relevant departmental Select Committee, but as we note in our report, informal surveys that we carried out showed that most Select Committees have rarely taken any action as a result of receiving a petition.
	On the other hand, the system does have its strengths. All our witnesses—and, ultimately, all members of the Committee—agreed that having a Member of Parliament formally present the petition was an indispensable part of the system, which should not be lost. Members often advise the public on how to prepare their petition. Indeed, they may on some occasions steer a constituent away from the petition route if they feel that there are better ways for the person to pursue their objective. We felt that the requirement to find a Member to present a petition was useful and should be kept. Members can also act as a filter for trivial or inappropriate petitions.
	As for our proposals, we took the view that it is far better to build on the strength of the current system than to recommend a totally new system. In our report, we suggested how to remove some of the weaknesses of our procedures. Our proposals are as follows. We propose that the Government be required to respond formally to all petitions within two months of their presentation. It was the view of the Procedure Committee that every petitioner should ultimately get an answer to their petition. The text of petitions and Government responses should be published in  Hansard, and on a Friday, the time of the formal presentation of a petition should be moved to just before the end of the day—just before the Adjournment debate; that is when they are presented on other days. Access to petitions through the parliamentary website should be made easier, and there should be opportunities for petitions to be debated in Westminster Hall.
	The Government have accepted all those recommendations except, regrettably, the last. I am grateful for the Leader of the House's support for the Procedure Committee's report, but I am disappointed that she was not prepared to add her weight to the proposal to add just one half-hour debate slot to Thursday's Westminster Hall sitting. That would provide a dedicated petitions slot, in which the presenting Member could discuss the petition and the reply.
	Such a slot would have demonstrated that the House was now committed to taking petitions seriously, and it would also have served to concentrate Ministers' minds not only on their responsibility to reply, but on the content of the reply.
	Although petitions are addressed to the House of Commons, the remedies that they seek can often be secured only through Government action, so proper Government responses to petitions are an essential part of any effective system. I am pleased that the Government have given an undertaking to respond to petitions. However, I am slightly concerned that the wording used by the Leader of the House is that normally, only substantive petitions should receive a response. Despite that wording, I hope she will issue guidance to Ministers that except in very exceptional circumstances, all petitions should receive a response, even if the response is to the effect that the issue raised is one for local government, rather than for national Government. That is none the less a response.
	The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), who is no longer in her place, and one or two other Members have said that the Procedure Committee should have been more radical in its proposals for petitions, and that we should have suggested the setting up of a petitions Committee and an e-petitions system. To them I say, "Watch this space". We expressed support in our report for e-petitions, and we have said that we are going on to examine the practical and procedural implications, with a view to bringing a worked-up system back to the House.
	The Government—I applaud them for this—have placed it on record that they are in favour of an e-petitions system for the House of Commons, and have encouraged us to complete our work on that as soon as possible. I can tell the Leader of the House that we have already made a good start. E-petitions to the House of Commons have the potential to make a significant contribution to the House's aim of improving how it connects with the public, but if e-petitions are to fulfil that potential, the system must be robust and properly resourced, and the House must be willing to listen to what the public are saying, which means that there may have to be some sort of system whereby certain petitions are then eligible for debate.
	The petitioning procedure has for a long time been an obscure one and relatively little used. The proposals that the House is being asked to approve this afternoon will bring the petitioning system some way out into the light to make it more accessible to our constituents. But make no mistake—the introduction of e-petitioning will take us much further. If anyone doubts the potential impact of e-petitions, they should look at the No. 10 website.

Brian Binley: No; my concern is not that the issue is controversial. My concern is whether my right hon. Friend recognises that hand-held devices go way beyond the simple act of e-mailing, and how he would control their uses so they are not used in a manner that he might not wish to see happen?

George Young: I want to move on.
	If I may say so, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is particularly appropriate that you are in the Chair, as the evidence that you gave to the Modernisation Committee clearly helped to inform its conclusions. Several hon. Members have referred to regional Select Committees. I think that that proposal would aggravate the problem that is before the Chamber this afternoon rather than alleviate it. It would be yet a further demand on the time of the hard-pressed Back Bencher and cut across the work of existing Select Committees. It would not provide proper accountability, as the regional Minister is not the budget holder for the money that is being spent in a region. As I indicated in business questions, I very much hope that the Government will not go down the regional Select Committee route, as I think that it would simply aggravate the sort of issues that we have been discussing this afternoon.
	As is usual when we debate the work of a Select Committee, in one hand we have the report and in the other we have the Government's response. What is unusual today with regard to the Modernisation Committee is that both the report and the reply were drafted by the Leader of the House. It is like something out of "The Mikado", in which Pooh-Bah was lord high everything, and consulted himself in his various capacities. I do not think that W. S. Gilbert had Pooh-Bah as the Minister for Women and the chairman of the Japanese Labour party, but there is a certain incongruity and circularity in the process that has been gone through in putting the report before us this afternoon.
	It is simply wrong that a report whose title refers to "the role of the back bench Member" should be drafted by a member of the Cabinet. Indeed, because of the abundance of talent from the Leader of the House and her predecessor, neither of them has ever spent much time as a Back-Bench Member of Parliament. That brings me to the first point that I want to make. Such reports should be produced by a Select Committee of Back-Bench Members of Parliament chaired by a Back Bencher. That is what happens in every other Select Committee, and there is no reason why it should not happen in the Modernisation Committee. I have made that point unrepentantly for several years, regardless of who was Leader of the House, and I am happy to say that I now have third-party endorsement.
	Last week saw the publication of "The House Rules?"—a Constitution Unit report by Meg Russell and Akash Paun. It provides a worthy route map for the Modernisation Committee and I hope that Members will find time to read it. That report says of the process that we are witnessing today:
	"However, to sign up to the committee's"—
	that is, the Modernisation Committee's—
	"conclusions, the Leader of the House must ensure they are acceptable to the government. This can easily be seen as in conflict with the principle that the House controls its own procedures".
	Indeed. That process of securing approval from the Government in advance, before publishing the report, is an unacceptable constraint on a Select Committee. The Constitution Unit report goes on to say that if the reforms are adopted,
	"we see no need for the continuation of the Modernisation Committee. This should be merged with the Procedure Committee, under a strong backbench chair."
	I can think of no better candidate for that post than my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire. It is simply wrong that the Cabinet Minister whose job it is to deliver the Government's legislative programme should also be the Chairman of the Committee that decides the process that that programme should follow in the House. That is a constitutional short-circuit that should set alarm bells ringing and red lights flashing.
	That leads me to my second point, which is about the title of the report: "Revitalising the Chamber—the role of the back bench Member". The report should be about empowering Back Benchers—strengthening them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) said. It is all very well to raise the Back Bencher's profile, to give him more speaking opportunities and make better use of his time, but does the report actually increase his authority? I am not convinced; it does not change the terms of trade between Parliament and the Executive.
	Let me give a couple of examples of where I think the report should have gone further. I welcome the recommendations on Select Committees as far as they go, but the Chairman of a Select Committee should be able to present his report to the House on the day of its publication. He should be allowed to make a statement; I see no reason why Ministers should have a monopoly on statements to the House. Many Select Committee reports have been far more important than some of the statements that we get from Ministers—for example, the Rural Payments Agency report by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and some of the Foreign Affairs Committee and Public Administration Committee reports.
	At the moment Select Committee reports get time for debates, but debate time is worth less than statement time. Statements come early in the day and get much more media coverage. More Members will come in for a statement because they have a greater opportunity to take part than during a debate and can intervene without tying up half a day. Furthermore, statements on the day of publication are topical, whereas debates weeks after the Government have responded are not. If the issue were left to me, the Minister would have the opportunity to put a question to the Select Committee Chairman after his statement, just as we put questions to Ministers after their statements.
	To continue with the same theme, the debates on Select Committee reports at the moment are Adjournment debates; they are often thinly attended and consist only of Committee members talking to each other. We should be able to vote on Select Committee reports and I am sorry that the Government cannot bring themselves to contemplate that. Voting on reports would give them a higher profile, concentrate the Government's attention on what was being said and engage the attention of a broader range of Members of Parliament. I accept that if the Committee members knew that their report was likely to be voted on, it might be more difficult to secure a consensus, but I think that a price worth paying.
	The Government keep telling us that they are interested in making the Chamber more topical, but on Tuesday we debated the Members' fund when we should have debated the pre-Budget report and the comprehensive spending review. Vital Government statements of financial and political priority that set the parameters for the next three years are not being debated at all—and that from a Government who want to make the Chamber more topical.
	I agree that we need less time on the Queen's Speech; many of the Bills in the next Session will have been carried over and will have had pre-legislative scrutiny. The Queen's Speech was announced in July; indeed, it was debated in July. The spontaneity of the Queen's Speech is not what it was, and we should recognise that it needs less time for formal debate after the Loyal Address.
	The report includes a section about advice. If I can put on my "Standards and Privileges" hat for a moment and encourage Members to get advice, the Tea Room is very good for gossip but not always good for advice. The report recommends that Members should get proper advice from the right channels if they need it.
	There is a big chunk about induction, which has not been touched on in the debate. I went to one of the induction meetings at the beginning of this Parliament. It was enormously valuable; I learned far more from that session with new Members than they learned from me. It is right that we make recommendations to improve the induction process.

John Redwood: I have no objections to the proposals before the House, but I cannot tell whether they will make a contribution to reviving democracy in this Chamber, because that will very much depend on the spirit in which they are implemented by the Government of the day. We have a majority-based system and I think that that is right. I fully accept that when a Government win a sizeable majority, as this Government have, two very important powers or privileges are extended to people who are Ministers. First, Ministers can do anything they like under the law with the moneys raised by the state, and with the Administration at their command, they can instruct officials to do whatever they wish. Secondly, if they do not like the law, they can change it in any way they like. Both of those great powers are great privileges and Ministers exercise them with care if they are sensible. All that they have to do in order to carry on exercising those powers is to ensure that enough of their hon. and right hon. Friends continue to support them at crucial times.
	However, there is one other thing that they have to do. Every four or five years, they have to face the question whether the electors think that they have used their powers intelligently and well. We live in a country that has a great sense of fairness. The country feels that a Government are stronger for licensing dissent, debate and disagreement than they are for trying to close it down. We live in a country where people respect a Government who allow minority parties and interests in this House decent opportunity to give voice to their views, which may, on occasion, be the views of the majority in the country, not the views of the minority who voted for the Government.
	The public also like to feel that the Government do not just afford the minority that opportunity in order to give vent to feelings, but are listening and seriously engaging with those different views. An intelligent Government, who wish to stay in power for a long time, have to understand that this is an intrinsically democratic country and that people expect give and take, and expect their Government to learn sometimes from those who oppose them, as well as those who advise and support them in good times and bad.
	When I was a Minister, a group of Labour MPs launched a strong, interesting campaign, saying that there were too many quangos, that they had too many powers and that too many supporters of the Government were involved with them. I listened to that campaign and watched it for a while before I realised that it was right. Within the limits of collective responsibility and Government debate, I tried to move what I was doing in the direction of responding to those criticisms—cutting back the powers of the quangos, cutting their budgets and balancing up the appointments—because I thought the campaign was making powerful points.
	Ironically, because those MPs were rather good at opposition, they often started opposing my measures to correct the initial problem, but they were right about that problem, and it was my job to fight it. If I had just decided that they were completely wrong and dealt with everything they said with a political put-down or a cheap point, or reminded them about the problems of the Labour Government in 1978, I would not have been doing my job properly. I would not have gained any respect from the people I sought to serve if I treated them as beings who had no right to a view, and assumed automatically that their view was wrong and decided that the way to deal with it was to make cheap political points about dim, distant past history.
	The idea that we need topical debates is a very good test of whether the Government are new and more democratic in a way that the outgoing Prime Minister's Government were not. The Government have a choice. As they will effectively control what the topical debates will be about, they will, in any given week, have a difficult choice to make.
	Most weeks there is a crisis in one Department or another. Most weeks, there is an illustration of bureaucratic mess or ministerial mistakes. Some weeks, Ministers are on the rack. The Opposition and many people in the media would like the topical debate to highlight that crisis or that Minister under pressure. That would provide excitement in the Chamber—somebody would be on trial. There could be a real consequence of the Minister doing very well, in which circumstance the Government would be strengthened, or the Minister doing badly, in which circumstance the case for getting rid of them is enhanced. If the Government are brave enough to do that, democracy wins. The Government may have a bad week or a good one depending on how skilful they are. If they duck such issues every time and say, "No, that isn't what we want by way of a topical debate; the debate will be on some worthy topic that attracts cross-party support because it is something nice to talk about", the proposals will fail to invigorate and improve our democracy in the way we are told they might.
	Topical questions are a good idea. It is often frustrating to find that one's question has not come high up the Order Paper, and that all the questions that have could have been tabled in a county council chamber and relate to specific matters in specific constituencies, leaving no room for open questions that enable a Back Bencher to intervene on a matter of national interest. The report rightly gives instances of topical matters being well without the scope of the limited range of questions on an Order Paper. That means that departmental questions that month is a waste of time. The press and public, to the extent that they are watching, think that it is nonsense because a big issue faced the Department but it did not even come up in departmental questions. The press and public often claim that nobody bothered to ask about it. They do not understand that our procedures prevent Members of Parliament who are desperate to ask about the subject from doing so because nothing on the Order Paper enabled them to go in that direction.
	The Government are set on dividing England into separate regions. They wrongly believe that that will prevent the English problem from growing. It is no answer to people who wish England to have some balanced treatment of its affairs to reflect the devolution in Scotland and Wales to say that it will have some regional treatment in the Palace of Westminster. That is a red rag to a bull and not a way to tackle the tension. I hope that the Leader of the House understands that it will incense people who are worried about the plight of England; it will not reassure them. She should also understand that it poses grave questions about whether the Government have any belief in devolution.
	I am a Member of Parliament from the south-east, as the Government see it. Many of us in the south-east do not recognise it as a region. It is drawn so clumsily that it means that London is not part of it, yet people in my region look to London for shopping, leisure and employment. We have much conversation and many dealings with London. We have almost no links with places such as Kent and Sussex, which are in my region. There is no regional feeling—the region is an artificial construct.
	Furthermore, the south-east happens to be the region in England that always elects a Conservative majority. My hon. Friends and I strongly object to wasting money on regional government. We do not want the regional assembly, the development agency, the regional planning system or the housing quangos. We want them to be swept away. When the Leader of the House suggests that we need a body to provide accountability for the unaccountable quangos, she faces a genuine dilemma. Those who represent the so-called region do not want the quangos. We do not want to make them accountable; we want to get rid of them. If any sort of public intervention or expenditure of public moneys is needed—we would prefer less of both—that should be done through elected local government, which is democratically accountable and has some sense of locality and belonging. We have no sense of that in the south-east region as a whole.
	I look forward to seeing how the proposals bed down. They could be an important step in the right direction. If we had the right topical debates, the Chamber would fill up more, the press would be more interested and the public would realise that we were responding to more of the daily issues that worry them. If the question system worked better, that would reinforce the idea of topicality. If we want the Select Committee system to work well, I support the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) that creating more Select Committees for bogus regions will detract from concentrating good people on the existing Select Committees and letting them do a better job. If the Government wish to strengthen Select Committees, they should not have more of them but give the existing ones more power.

John Redwood: I tend to see early-day motions as parliamentary graffiti. I always point out to my constituents when they want me to sign them that they are meaningless, that they never get debated and that the Government do not take them seriously. Those things are all clearly true. I understand that some colleagues think that it could be possible to make early-day motions more significant. If someone came up with a working model for that, I would be prepared to consider it. I tend to sign the jokey early-day motions. If I notice an early-day motion congratulating a sports team that I support, I am happy to put my name to it, because it can do no harm and is obviously meant nicely.
	Occasionally I sign serious early-day motions if there is no other way of making the point. I do not do so because I think that that is the best way to make the point—I know that it is the worst—but because it is sometimes a sign of frustration at the fact that an early-day motion is the only way left to make Ministers consider an issue on which we cannot get a debate or question. The big problem with early-day motions is that Ministers do not have to consider them, whereas if there is a debate in this place, a Minister has to come and answer it. If an hon. Member writes a letter to a Minister, the Minister—unfortunately, it is often someone on the Minister's behalf these days—has to write back. There is no such trigger with an early-day motion.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) might be right that it could be possible to devise a scheme for triggering debates if enough hon. Members signed an early-day motion. However, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead said, there would then have to be a way of distinguishing those early-day motions that congratulate a soccer team on winning a game—I trust that most colleagues would not wish to spend an hour and a half debating such a motion in the House, pleased though they may be with their team's result—from one about a serious question that warranted debate. There has to be a filter, and ultimately that filter is the Government, because they have the majority and they will decide what will be debated.
	The Government should see this debate in the context of the fact that a large number of people are disengaged from party politics of the kind that the three main parties offer and from how this place does or does not conduct its business, for the various reasons that others have already mentioned. If the House could have more topical debates, with more power, passion and real exchange, that would be good. However, that will work only if the Government wish it to work and if they come to Parliament with a certain democratic humility. If they want to live in a world where minority opinions can be forcefully expressed and will occasionally make an impact on the Government, our democracy will start to flourish. If they wish to continue with a system in which all minority opinion is briefed against and dealt with in a brutal and politically crude way that does not answer the question or point that that minority opinion is making, our democracy will not flourish and the House will be largely wasting its time.

Richard Shepherd: It will come as no surprise to Friends and colleagues in the House that I have reservations about the process by which we have arrived at this point. Anyone who has had sufficient time even to glance at the Modernisation Committee's report will see that it is now called "Revitalising the Chamber: the role of the back bench Member". The report started life earlier in the year as two inquiries. The one that interested me was the one into revitalising the Chamber, because I have been around and I have come to a conclusion. The revitalisation of the Chamber depends on the initiatives for debate and on the business of the House being controlled much more by the Members of the House, rather than through the partisan allotment of time by the Crown in the Parliament—the Leader of the House, who, in the generosity of the new Government, combines several posts. I am glad to see her in her role as the Leader of the House.
	We agonised over what to call the second and very important inquiry, because the then Leader of the House, who is now the Secretary of State for Justice, was conscious that we had to do something as a House about its standing. We came up with "Strengthening the role of the backbencher". We laboured long in this vineyard. The Constitution Society and the Hansard Society were mentioned earlier. I strongly recommend that people read the evidence given to the Committee. It is very good, reasonable and intelligent—everything that one would expect—and from it sprang certain interesting ideas. Unfortunately, many of them are a "back to the future" approach to life, inasmuch as it is difficult to reinvent the wheel.
	One crucial issue relates to the all-encompassing Standing Order that effectively says that Government business takes precedence over all other business in this House—save for the days allotted to the Opposition and the Liberal Democrats and the time given to Back-Bench Members on Fridays for private Members' Bills. My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) will recall as I do when we had something called private Members' motions. Any Member could enter a ballot for the ability to move a substantive motion and, if necessary, secure a vote on it.
	That is the star role in the House. No Government want to surrender it, and certainly no Opposition posturing to be a Government want to surrender it. Not even the sub-Opposition hoping to be a Government want to surrender it. We are suppressed because, in some of the magic moments after Jopling had reported, successive Leaders of the House—they were Conservative—somehow did away with substantive motions proposed by Back Benchers on a ballot. They just went. They were bought off when the Opposition were offered yet more guaranteed days for these wretched three-hour debates in which it is virtually impossible for a Back Bencher to participate. It is all in the hands of those who hope to form the Government.
	The Prime Minister, who made a statement on Monday, reassured us that all was well in the Scottish elections and that in any event we were all to blame. Would a Government table a substantive motion to discuss the actions of the present Secretary of State for International Development, the former Secretary of State for Scotland? Would the Opposition propose such a debate in a partisan spirit? There must be many Scottish Members—I am thinking of members of the Scottish National party, whose Benches are empty, and independent Members—who want to know why no Minister has been held to account, but where is the substantive motion? The Government are unlikely to choose to table one.
	I think of how this House has handled the war in Iraq; I think of the vitality of the United States Congress in discussing such matters; and I compare it with the leaden way in which debate has proceeded here. In five years, we have had—I think—three debates on the war. Who could be responsible for that? Standing Order No. 41 gives the Government absolute pre-eminence in the selection of debates.
	Let me quote what the Clerk of the House had to say about these matters. Page 51—to help those who ever read  Hansard—of this sad report states:
	"The Clerk of the House pointed out that 'What back bench Members cannot do currently is initiate debates on a substantive motion which would enable them to test the opinion of the House on a subject at their own initiative.' He went on to say such a reform would be a significant strengthening of the role of a back bench Member. Reintroducing Private Members' Motions could also provide a vehicle for those who felt that there should be some mechanism for Early Day Motions to be debated."
	Goodness!